I'm not sure how the word gains force in an Olympic context. Stoked; stokeder; stokedest?

Jagger Eaton, the 20-year-old American who won bronze in the first-ever Olympic skateboarding event here on Sunday described himself as "beyond stoked". That sounds like a mystical place to be.

He was asked after his success where he was going to hang his medal at home, and replied: "I don't even have a home yet. So I'll probably give this medal to my dad. Honestly I don't have anywhere else to put it."

When - if - he ever does get a home, he really should consider calling it Beyond Stoked.

But then Eaton went on to say this in a fairly stoked and certainly packed press conference after the final at Ariake Sports Park. 

"Just being in the [Olympic] Village is such an amazing place. There's nothing like the Olympics and that it's 100 per cent true.

"Skating at the X Games and the Street League is really fun, but again it's nothing like the Olympic Games."

I have to add here that Eaton, clearly named with a view to becoming a) a rock star b) a mountaineer or of course c) a skateboarder in later life, has a brother named Jett.

Those doing the naming - one presumes - were mom and dad. That is, Geoff Eaton, owner of Kids That Rip (KTR) Skateboard School - that is presumably the sports version of School of Rock - and Shelly Schaerer, a member of the United States national gymnastics team from 1985 to 1989.

How much cooler can a family get?

Anyway, I digress, back to the driving narrative…

When Ross Rebagliati and his own cool crew glid into town at the Nagano 1998 Winter Olympics for the new snowboarding giant slalom event there was a very strong, one might almost say seismic - especially as that occasion provided a sizeable earthquake that set ceiling lamps dancing - sense of cultural shock.

Essentially the pot-smoking imbroglio in which the gold medal-winning Canadian became, er, imbrogled, was down to a disjunction between cultures. He maintained he had been at a farewell party before leaving for the Games from his home base at Whistler, and that his friends were merely indulging in their normal practice for chilling, and that he had inhaled some second-hand smoke.

In this respect the explanation was the exact reverse of the one employed a year or so earlier by the United States President Bill Clinton when he was taxed with some ancient doping trespass.

In the end Rebagliati kept his gold, despite a very unpleasant seven hours being questioned by a distinctly unamused Japanese police force. It came down to the fact that the International Skiing Federation, under whose aegis snowboard sat, had not shared and compared its rules with the International Olympic Committee (IOC), which had not specifically banned cannabis, although it did so a couple of months later. So all this created a loophole through which Rebagliati steered to become home free…

He has since become an entrepreneur in the cannabis industry. Fancy that!

Numerous observers expressed the view that the IOC could hardly have expected anything else once they had decided to invite snowboarding aboard.

But the odd vibe I got yesterday as Eaton, and earlier the sport’s iconic poster boy Nyjah Huston, who has been winning world and X Games titles for fun, really for fun, since he was about two-feet tall, was how incredibly sincere and idealistic they were about their new Olympic challenge.

Speaking before the final where he finished a rueful seventh, Huston had expressed the same broad opinion as his younger US rival.

"I've been skating pro contests for 15 years now but there's Street League, X Games, but if you compare that to the Olympics there's no comparison," Huston said.

"I feel the pressure from the Olympics but also I feel a lot of pressure just from all my friends and homies and everyone from the USA. Because we've never skated for our countries before, and that means to me a lot.

"It's an extra motivation but also more pressure."

But while the fit with the Olympics appears much happier than the forced contiguous relations of snowboarding and the IOC back in Nagano, Eaton made it abundantly clear that skateboarding was no less of a unique culture than the wintry version.

In response to being asked whether he has ever been kicked out of properties or arrested for skating in the streets he said: "Most of the time people are cool. But you got to understand that skateboarding is so much bigger than sports.

"It's an art form, it's creative. That's how we see it. That's really where we find the most joy."

That comment reverberated in sympathy with one made a couple of days earlier by the exponent of a far more ancient sport that is a world away from the laid-back skating vibe. That is, boxing.

Speaking before a boxing competition that is being delivered at Tokyo by the IOC's own Boxing Task Force, following the decision in 2019 to take that responsibility away from the - at that point - unreconstructed and, shall we say, dysfunctional International Boxing Association, Ireland’s 2018 under-60-kilogram women’s world champion Kellie Harrington spoke as precisely and effectively as she boxes.

The 31-year-old from St Mary’s Boxing Club in Dublin suburb Tallaght is here for glory after winning the European qualification tournament.

Boxing is celebrated by many as the sweet science, a thing of technicality and cool logic. It is that to Harrington. But it is more.

Her hugely successful amateur career has seen her defeat numerous opponents with professional experience. 

Asked to reflect upon the difference between the amateur and professional ranks, she paused for a moment and then said: "Okay, I’m just going to say this the way I see it." And proceeded to do so.

"I think amateur boxing is a lot more technical and professional boxing is a lot more about slugging it out.

"On a personal level it showed that I was quite technical and, well, she [Maïva Hamadouche, French professional boxer Harrington beat 5-0 in the qualifier] wasn’t. And I won the bout. 

"There are technical, tactical pro boxers - but I think amateur boxing is like art. And a lot of my family think amateur boxing is like art. 

"That's why I love to watch amateur boxing. Actually it’s not like art. It is art."

These are the cultures, patently different yet clearly sharing some vital core values, that come together in the Olympics, no matter the vexed and straitened nature of these Tokyo Games. Long may this continue.